UPDATE: Fox Home Entertainment & ‘Sleepy Hollow’ Marketer Apologize For “Headless Day” Promo After Beheading Of Second U.S. Journalist

UPDATED, 5:07 PM: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, the home video branch handling the Sleepy Hollow digital, DVD and Blu-ray release, issued their own statement following marketing firm ThinkJam’s apology and retraction: “Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment recognizes and apologizes for today’s promotion for the Season One DVD release of Sleepy Hollow. We regret the unfortunate timing of our announcement and our deepest sympathies go out to the families of all involved.”

PREVIOUSLY, 3:30 PM: A marketing firm drumming up buzz for Fox’s Sleepy Hollow series apologized Tuesday for launching a “Sleepy Hollow Headless Day” home video campaign on the same day that a second captured American journalist was killed by decapitation. The Sleepy Hollow “Headless Day” promo was emailed to press shortly after news broke that Steven Sotloff had been beheaded at the hands of ISIS militants, and 14 days after video surfaced of the same group beheading captured American photojournalist James Foley.

“We apologize for the unfortunate timing of our Sleepy Hollow Headless Day announcement. The tragic news of Steven Sotloff’s death hit the web as the email was being sent. Our deepest sympathies are with him and his family, and we don’t take the news lightly. Had we have known this information prior, we would have never released the alert and realize it’s in poor taste,” read the mea culpa email from ThinkJam, which has offices in London, New York, and Los Angeles and issued the Sleepy Hollow campaign at the behest of Fox Home Entertainment.

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If ThinkJam and Fox were unaware of the breaking Sotloff news Tuesday, they must have also missed international headlines of Foley’s gruesome death two weeks prior. In the August 19 video depicting Foley’s death, a man identified as Sotloff is said to be next in line as a militant dressed in black threatens him: “The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.”

ThinkJam’s PR campaign features a quartet of cheerily morbid e-cards celebrating decapitation (see below) and was issued from their LA office to promote the show’s September 16 digital, Blu-ray, and DVD release. The initial Sleepy Hollow Headless Day email trumpeted September 2 as National Beheading Day along with the social media hashtag #HeadlessDay:

Sleepyheads Celebrate Headless Day – eCards Available

Heads will roll as sleepyheads celebrate Headless Day today, September 2. On this National Beheading Day, viewers everywhere can share in the fun as fans prepare for the release of Sleepy Hollow: Season One on Digital HD now and arriving on Blu-ray and DVD September 16.

We hope you like them and are able to share them with your readers! If you share via your social media platforms, please tag them with #HeadlessDay!

A ThinkJam rep says the Headless Day campaign was pre-approved by Fox. It was scheduled in advance to go out today “as a lighthearted way to celebrate the title” and was sent “to [journalists] we thought would enjoy it.”

21 Comments

Nate • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

So they’re tasteless and DH shows all four? Not like there was any compelling reason to post them.

Mark Kelley • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

They absolutely did the right thing by pulling the campaign. I hope Fox is held responsible for the tastelessness so soon after the James Foley tragedy alone. Using the phrase “take a breath” after this beheading is neither amusing nor acceptable. This is in reference to the courageous person who wrote the comment. And the person who approved its posting.

You want Deadline to start censoring posts you disagree with? How? Are they supposed to be psychic? Even assuming that was a good idea.

Mark Kelley • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Censoring would be altering the substance of the comment. I didn’t suggest that. I’m saying that the comment should not have been posted; that the “take a breath” was not some arbitrary turn of phrase; because these circumstances are extraordinary : two Americans beheaded and they’re not even in the military. As for FBC vs. FOX News my point has been made for me : the heads of two journalists lopped off is “simple business”. And that one aspect of the FOX corporate business model will be perpetually outraged as “simple business”; while FBC conducts itself as “business as usual” until called out the latter completely insensitive to all foreign correspondents and journalists around the globe. What happens when journalists stop going to these places because that’s obviously part of the program here? I do acknowledge that “Sleepy Hollow” found itself in a tough position. And I like the series. But again – these are extraordinary circumstances that to some degree FBC did not even seem to be cognizant of within the same organization as “Fair and Balanced” FOX News. And still no full proper names. Show your face “take a breath”. I’m confident that it’s not being chopped off at the neck. Are you? What about your family and friends and neighbors – if you’re a foreign journalist for instance – are they confident from hereon in that your “face” will never be chopped off below the throat?

Take a breath, Because you can. Tell us who you are so you’re capable of being tracked down.

Mark, presumably you (and the gratifyingly small group of your fellow outragees) also believe that Hallowe’en should be cancelled this year? No doubt, bad timing and they apologized but the campaign broke practically simultaneously with events, so it really seems you’re over-reacting a bit, in part of course because of your obvious virulent but in this case irrelevant antipathy to Fox News which is clearly coloring your assessment. So yeah, unfortunate coincidence but try to remember that terrorists win when we tie ourselves in knots because of their actions.

FFSG • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Held responsible? Where? The courts? It was unfortunate timing, but this marketing team did the exact right thing. Let’s move on, shall we?

Mark Kelley • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Certainly in reference to pointing out something very specific : who is more hawkish than Fox News about this stuff? It is the definition of their content. They exploit these horror shows for ideological programming purposes by baiting the distracted. One of the great bait-and-switches of all time is labeling an all-conservative agenda as “Fair and Balanced”. Repeat something that panders to an audience’s worst fears over and over again about the liberal “lamestream media” and they’re gonna start to believe it. And yet they have engaged at the same time in a PR campaign that is completely counter-intuitive to the bile they gin up as patriotism.

Manufacturers of “Meet John Doe” and “All the King’s Men” and “A Face in the Crowd” stuff all the way every day and night of the week.

So in the court of public opinion at the very least. But everybody’s so afraid of Murdoch that that won’t happen.

CGS • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Why are you confusing FOX News with Fox Broadcasting Company? Makes no sense. FBC is quite liberal. FOX News is conservative because they are catering to a market that wasn’t already being served by CNN and the other news outlets. Simple business. But to bring up FOX News in a story about FOX Broadcasting is a bit silly.

Anon • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Really? You’re surprised? I’m just surprised they didn’t also post the full uncensored footage of the heinous act.

Well Duh • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Bingo!

Anonymous • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

My God, why is everyone just looking for a reason to be outraged? Sleepy Hollow is about a headless horseman. The pr stunt features a headless horseman. Go outside; take a breath; grow up.

ChicagoDan • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Exactly! So the campaign was alright a couple of weeks after the first decapitation? We knew another was coming and it sounds like plenty more. There is no need to apologize. The real outrage should be directed: 1) at ISIS’ actions and 2) how it grew out of control.

Jimmy • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Agreed.

Anonymous • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

I’m sick of the terrorists wining. Seriously.

Anonymous • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Um, the show is based on the headless horseman so there isn’t a lot they could do to work their way around that fact. My prayers and condolences go out to the families these journalists.

CGS • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Wow, people are so ignorant. A show about a headless horseman uses the term “headless” in a campaign?! *gasp* How dare they! Anyway… any person with even the slightest amount of intelligence would realize that this was a coincidence, and there’s no one to blame. While it’s terrible that a guy lost his life there is absolutely no reason to be super sensitive about a fantasy show’s promotional campaign. But I guess some people can’t keep their heads.

Baloney. It’s ISIS who should be apologizing – and brought to justice.

Anon • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

Amen. Brought to justice? I’m sure that they’ve already slipped through our porus border to the south. So, if we can just find them before they do something horrible HERE, well, that would be nice.

Jack • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

These kind of mistakes are unacceptable and just shows the industry how FOX Home Entertainment is not that good with attention to detail. Someone at Fox should lose their job over this. This is such bad taste!

Mark Kelley • on Sep 2, 2014 5:07 pm

“stittr” – is that on your driver’s license? – “the gratifyingly small group of outragees” – about what? The beheading of journalists and then the exploitation of it as “fair and balanced” programming? You’re glad that’s a small group? Do you think that decreeing it as such – decreeing – that’s one definition of the tone of all FOX News programming – decreeing it as a “gratifyingly small group” will render it as such in media viral terms?